


headlights

by ssstrychnine



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-The Raven King, The Raven King Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6960346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ronan thinks about the pieces of himself that disappeared with cabeswater. adam covers his eyes. orphan girl is unimpressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	headlights

Ronan doesn’t consider what it will do to Adam when Cabeswater is torn down. The road is wet and Gansey’s cheeks are wet and Ronan thinks that he will die if Gansey doesn’t wake up. He can barely see for crying and his throat hurts where the demon touched him, _not_ Adam, just the clawed hand of an unmaker. He takes a breath and he shuts his eyes and he and Adam and Blue give up their dreamt forest and a minute is a thousand years and it’s possible that Adam makes a sound, choked back down his throat before it can be properly heard, but that might just be the rain. 

The world feels emptier afterwards. Ronan’s head feels scoured clean, like it’s been washed out with bleach and steel wool. The road seems endless and empty and the air is early morning air, still dark, crisp with danger. Ronan’s hands don’t feel like they’re his and he pinches at the webbing between his thumb and forefinger until it’s white with pressure and sharp with pain. Gansey is moving. His elbow slips on slick green grass, but he’s almost sitting up. Adam is standing again and Orphan Girl is holding one of his hands and the other is on Ronan’s shoulder and that doesn’t quite feel real either.

“That was pathetic,” says Ronan, his voice as harsh as Chainsaw’s. “That wasn't even half a death.” 

“He tried,” says Henry, sounding only a little better than Ronan with his attempt at humour. Ronan isn’t sure how he feels about Henry yet, about Henry being there and Noah being somewhere else, but it was him who brought them to Gansey, who gave Gansey his jacket, who is helping Gansey to his feet, who Blue is clinging to with desperate hands. Perhaps he isn’t what Aglionby makes him out to be. Perhaps none of them are. Ronan wipes rain and tears from his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

“Lynch,” he hears from behind him, Adam with his hand a little more insistent on his shoulder. Ronan turns, stumbles a little, thrown off by the space that Cabeswater has left in him. Adam looks as strange as Ronan feels, like he’s a moment away from being pulled from his mooring, and Ronan remembers what he had given Cabeswater. What happens when you sacrifice something that has also claimed a price? 

“Are you...” Ronan twists his mouth, his hands, finishes the question in silence. Adam lets out a breath that is so uneven Ronan has to step forward. He takes his hand then lets it go.

“I feel...” says Adam but he can’t finish either, he shakes his head and then he takes Ronan’s hand back and presses their damp palms together. Orphan Girl lets go of Adam to put one of her hands in the pocket of Ronan’s hoodie, gripping the fabric tightly. Together they turn back to Gansey and Blue and Henry, who are wobbling with relief and exhaustion.

“The Barns,” says Ronan.

“Fox Way,” says Gansey, so they go to Fox Way. 

Ronan is not comfortable in the psychic’s house, but he understands why it should be there that they go. He calls Declan on the way, and hearing Matthew’s voice fills in some of the missing pieces in his head. He will have to tell them that their mother is dead. He will have to tell Matthew what he is. Instead, he listens to his brother talk and he watches Orphan Girl make shadows with her hands and he thinks about the way that Adam’s arm is pressed against his. The harder things can wait, he decides. 

At Blue’s house they are mostly silent. Gansey sits in between Blue and Henry and he looks at his hands and he looks at Blue’s mouth and he cracks the bones in his fingers. Adam sits with Ronan and Orphan Girl sits in the biggest armchair, on her own, swinging her legs. Jimi brings them tea and only Adam drinks it. No one tries to explain what happened to any of the adults and they don’t ask, though they are all awake at four in the morning. They take their places in the silence. Ronan hates it. He wants to break a window or put on music so loud the melody disappears. He lasts five minutes, sitting there chewing on leather, trying not to stare at Gansey, alive and breathing, trying not to break Adam’s hand with his grip. Adam doesn’t follow him when he leaves and he might be glad for it. Calla does.

“I touched the dead boy,” she says, catching him halfway to the front door. 

“He has a name,” snarls Ronan, turning on her, instantly knowing she’s not talking about Gansey.

“Fine, I touched _Noah_ ,” she snaps. “He wanted to thank you.” 

“He can do that himself.” 

“Don’t be stupid,” she says, but then her expression gets a little softer and it’s that, more than anything, that makes Ronan sure that Noah’s gone. He doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge, he feels the air go out of him, the sharpness fall from his shoulders. He raises his wrist to his mouth then changes his mind; he buries his hands in his pockets instead. 

“Had to happen sometime,” he says. Noah was always dead. 

“Mm,” Calla agrees. Orphan Girl appears then, in muddy boots, her hair still misted with rain. Ronan would not have left her behind but he feels bad anyway, just for leaving the room without her. He wonders if she can feel the loss of Cabeswater too. She holds out her hand and he takes it and Calla watches them with narrowed eyes. 

“Don’t forget him,” says Calla then. “You had him longer than you deserved, don’t forget him.” She leaves before Ronan can reply, but that doesn’t matter. He thinks she’s probably not even talking about Noah. Persephone had left a hole in her too. 

They sit on front steps, him and Orphan Girl. She chews on the sleeves of her sweater and he presses his thumb into the palm of the opposite hand until he can feel where his bones lie. He sat here with Adam once, when Persephone died. They sat in silence, shoulder to shoulder, and Ronan tried not to think about the way Adam’s eyelashes looked, caught in the sunset. It seems a thousand years ago. 

Adam joins them later and they leave. They don’t go to the Barns, though every part of Ronan wants that familiar warmth, sleep and mud and glory. They go to Cabeswater. They go to the place where Cabeswater was. Ronan isn’t sure when they stopped thinking about it as private property, maybe when Adam gave it his hands and his eyes, maybe when they found Noah’s car, maybe when they found Ronan’s words carved into it, but it’s still theirs, even as an empty field.

“Can you feel it?” Ronan asks.

“I can feel... where it was,” says Adam. Orphan Girl makes a noise, a frustrated puff of air. Adam takes her hand. 

“Come back to the Barns with me,” says Ronan.

“I need my cards.”

“Do you think you can... without Cabeswater?” 

“I don’t know.” 

They fall silent again. Ronan touches Adam’s arm, curls his fingers under the cuff of Adam’s sweater, fingertips against the heel of his palm. Adam leans up, kisses Ronan’s throat, more like a sigh against skin than anything solid. Ronan shivers. They look out across the field, the sun is rising, everything is grey and green and pink and yellow. There’s no sign there had ever been a forest here, no sign it had ever been anything other than an empty field, train-track fences silhouetted in the distance. 

“Stay with me today,” he says, the emptiness creeping into his thoughts, an empty field, an empty house, an empty bed. 

“Mm,” says Adam, not agreeing, but not saying no either. Ronan kisses his temple, Adam smiles, closes his eyes. 

“Stay,” whispers Ronan, leaning into him, letting his teeth graze Adam’s cheekbone. Orphan Girl sighs, stomps her feet, hurls herself back toward the car. Adam’s smile widens, a gentle thing, a wicked thing.

“Today,” he says. “Tomorrow I’m going back to St Agnes, back to normal.”

“If you say so,” Ronan laughs. “Magic boy.”

“Dream boy.”

“Fucking _forest_ boy.” 

“Kerah!” screams Orphan Girl, slamming the car door over and over, flicking the headlights on and off.

“I’m locking her in a closet,” says Ronan, turning to walk back across the empty field, scuffing his boots through the grass. Adam walks beside him, hands in pockets, smiling at his shoes. Ronan wants to bite his collarbone. Ronan wants to put his fingers in his mouth. Ronan wants to feel his hands on his tattoo, bringing up goosebumps with his touch, turning the ink into something more alive. He pushes Adam instead, shoves at him gently, just enough that he skids on the grass and almost falls. He starts to jog toward the BMW while Adam rights himself behind him, swearing softly, laughing softly. 

In the car, Orphan girl sits in the passenger seat and Adam sits behind Ronan. At traffic lights his hands cover Ronan’s eyes.

“I’ll tell you when it’s green,” he whispers, low against his ear. Ronan thinks his heart stops, thinks he stops breathing, but then he kicks back into life again, pins and needles hot. Adam’s breath is warm against his skin. All he can think about is his palms, calloused still but softer, the way they curve over his brow bone, his cheekbones. All he can see is red. When he blinks, his eyelashes brush across his skin. 

“Go,” says Adam, and Ronan puts his foot down.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! [visit me on tumblr if you like.](http://oneangryshot.tumblr.com)


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